


Rain

by flaming_muse



Category: Glee
Genre: Arguing, M/M, Marriage, Rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 12:45:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12682167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaming_muse/pseuds/flaming_muse
Summary: Just because they're married doesn't mean they're new people.  An argument, some rain, and a resolution of sorts.  A bit of newly married Klaine in New York.





	Rain

**Author's Note:**

> I'm interested in how Kurt and Blaine deal with conflict after two break-ups and an unexpected marriage. They've both grown a lot, but they also are who they are. I wrote the first draft of this fic as a freewriting exercise one day, and I've been trying here and there since to shape it into something that made sense to people who weren't me.
> 
> Also, I feel like if there were a theme bingo for my work, rain would be one of the squares. The atmosphere of rainy days is powerful to me, I guess.

“I need some air, Blaine.” Kurt flings open the front door of the apartment, leaving Blaine where he stands by the couch, serious and as still as a statue. “I need some _space_.”

Kurt doesn’t wait for an answer as he shuts the door behind him - doesn’t slam, not quite, though there would be a great deal of satisfaction in that kind of percussive statement of his frustration - and propels himself down the hallway of their building as fast as he can walk.

He needs to _leave_. He needs to get away from the apartment. He needs to get away from a place that is supposed to be his refuge but is nothing like one right now. He needs to get away from the dirty dinner dishes and the stifling tension and the unwelcome tug of Blaine’s sad eyes.

He doesn’t need to go far - especially since he left his coat hanging on the rack and his keys and his phone on the table - but he absolutely needs to get away.

The window at the end of the dim hallway is propped open with a book, an ashtray with cigarette butts on the sill and the scent of smoke still thick in the air, and Kurt doesn’t hesitate as he ducks out through the gap onto the fire escape and climbs up the stairs toward the roof, because the last thing he needs to do is run into Jay the two-am-heavy-metal-enthusiast if he’s chain-smoking his problems away tonight. He just needs to be alone. He needs space. He needs _freedom_.

It’s raining, just a sluggish New York drizzle dripping from steely grey evening skies, and the rattling metal steps are slick under Kurt’s shoes. The railing is damp and rough under his hand, covered by generations of lumpy black paint and the less appealing evidence of the pigeons and smokers who like to roost on the it.

He is relieved to find that the roof is empty tonight, just a flat bit of asphalt and grubby utility boxes lit by the neon of the businesses on the street below, and he rolls his shoulders and walks to the low wall that rims the space.

Despite the sour smell of the damp city, Kurt takes a deep breath and finds it cleansing. He does it again, pulling air into his lungs and scrubbing them clean of anger and stress. There’s a bite of chill in the air that feels like steel wool in his throat, and he welcomes the sharpness of it. He needs sharpness after the softly muffled blows of Blaine’s emotions and needs.

_”But Kurt, why can’t you see - ” Blaine said, his words and his face equally filled with hurt and frustration and more than a smidgen of mulish determination. “This matters to me, too.”_

Kurt crosses his arms and leans his hip against the wall, looking blankly at the city spinning on around him. Looking at nothing, at nothing he has to care about, at nothing he has to figure out, at nothing he has to give attention to beyond himself.

He needs that, too. Just for a minute, an hour. Just for long enough that he doesn’t feel this way anymore.

_”You think I don’t know this matters to you?” Kurt snapped in reply, because the whole thing was a_ problem _because it mattered so much to Blaine, too. Why did everything have to matter so much?_

Kurt sighs and tries to get rid of those voices in his head.

Most of the time he feels secure in his life. He feels happy. He feels safe and cared about, known and loved. Most of the time he feels like he is exactly where he needs to be, in this city, in this career, in this marriage with Blaine.

But there are times when sureness feels like a delusion and happiness feels like it can disappear in a blink and love feels like a cage trapping him behind knife-sharp bars.

Tonight... tonight is one of those times.

They happen. Not every day, not every week, but more often than he would like. More often than makes him feel like he can ignore them, even when all he wants to do is not talk about it anymore.

_”I think maybe we should sit down and talk about this,” Blaine said, hesitant and clearly miserable. “Before either of us holds onto it too long.”_

Kurt curls his fingers around his arm, the raindrops clinging to his shirt glimmering in the lights and bright next to the dull gleam of his wedding ring.

He sets his jaw and takes another breath. He likes wearing that ring. He likes the ring and the man and the forever that are all wrapped up together. He does. He knows he does.

He knows he doesn’t want to ruin it with sharp words he can’t take back. Not again. He knows Blaine will hold onto them, long after Kurt’s frustration has faded. He’ll feel those barbs like fresh wounds long after Kurt’s forgotten what they were fighting about at all.

So as much as he wants to get it all out, Kurt knows he can’t let Blaine hear those words.

But, the thing is, he is who he is, and in the moment of frustration he still wants to spit out that venom and say them.

He held the worst inside tonight, but even so it didn’t stop the hurt that spilled across Blaine’s face over a disagreement over stacking dishes, of all things, but then it wasn’t just that. Of course it wasn’t just that.

Beneath the dishes, it was also about what to do with the spare room and finding time to have dinner together around rehearsal schedules and how many nights Rachel was going to come over this week and if Blaine was doing too much of his group’s final project and the merits of rain showerheads versus hand-held sprays and if pink sea salt was worth the cost and whether every difference of opinion, small and large, was going to come between them again after all until there was nothing left but acrimony and despair and their life breaking apart for good.

Kurt brushes the water from his face, knowing there aren’t any tears mixed with the rain but wondering if there should be. Wondering if he should be feeling more fear, like Blaine is, if that’s the problem with their marriage, or one of them.

He knows they made the right choice to get married. He knows it down to his bones. Even standing there on the roof, with a headache from frustration building behind his eyes and so many things he wants to yell at Blaine or at the world, he knows he will cool down, shake it off, and find himself smiling later at the simple sight of Blaine plumping his pillow just so or of their toothbrushes lined up next to each other like mannequins in a window. He loves Blaine and never wants to be without him again. He _knows_ that this is a bump in the road and that they can make their life together work. He knows Blaine knows all of that, too.

Except that they knew that before, knew with all of their hearts that they were meant to be together and wouldn’t ever let anything stand in their way, and look how wrong they had been. Look at how they’d shattered apart so painfully and had been lucky to find their way back together again against all of the odds.

With a weight sinking onto his chest, Kurt lets out a long sigh and looks down the misty street, trying to imagine living in this city without Blaine again. He tries to imagine being alone again. He could do it. He could get coffee or go to the market without Blaine at his side. He could work and laugh and spend time with friends without him. He could certainly stack his dishes any way he chose. He’s done it before.

But he doesn’t want to. He really doesn’t want to.

Apart from having the dishes be done his way, anyway.

He turns his back to the street and rubs the raindrops off of his sleeves in frustration. He just doesn’t know why he can’t have this life and the dishes done right, too.

He doesn’t want to lose Blaine, but he also feels strongly that the dishes should be fully dried before they’re stacked and put away, because no one likes to grab a wet dish from the cabinet, and he hates the way a dish rack looks on the counter even if it does save the wiping time. He’s right. He is _obviously_ right. He shouldn’t have to keep silent about it just to keep his husband.

Still, even if he shouldn’t have to, he thinks with a resigned sigh and a sick feeling in his stomach that he can’t ignore, maybe he _needs_ to.

He cares more about Blaine than the dishes, after all.

Of course he does.

Kurt thinks of Blaine’s dear, handsome face and says on a sigh, “Of course I do.”

He takes another slow breath. He knows he’s quick to judgment, but he needs to learn from experience and be slow and deliberate to resolution.

He knows Blaine can be fragile and easily hurt, after all, and maybe Kurt needs to be the bigger man and keep his mouth shut and yet somehow try not to let it all simmer inside until it bubbles up. Blaine is so much stronger than he used to be and is only going to grow more that way, and Kurt can wait for him to catch up.

He can wait for Blaine to be able to fight with him and not be damaged by it. He can wait until they’re used to disagreeing again, until they are both used to the fact that a difference of opinion doesn’t mean anything about the sureness of their hearts. Kurt can wait for Blaine to be steady and strong with him - with them - before unleashing the full force of his tongue.

Even if Blaine is totally and completely in all ways wrong about the dish rack.

After all, Kurt thinks, what’s a dish rack compared to the man he loves, the man he married, the man who holds the key to his heart, the very man who is probably working himself up into a tizzy of rejection and worry down in their apartment.

And if Blaine is never able to hold his own in an argument with Kurt without being bruised in a way Kurt rarely lets himself be, then Kurt will simply have to find a way to get his points across without pushing them to a breaking point, because he can’t be quiet but he also can’t alienate Blaine again. He may make mistakes in his life, but he always does his best not to make the same ones more than once.

He pushes himself away from the wall and toward the stairs, determined to clamp down on his emotions, because he doesn’t want Blaine to be sitting there in misery and tears and wondering if Kurt is returning or if Kurt cares enough or -

Kurt startles when Blaine’s head pops up at the top of the fire escape, and Blaine’s eyes go wide as he stops halfway onto the roof.

“I’m sorry,” Blaine says in surprise, but he’s composed and calm, nothing like the wreck Kurt assumed he would be. “I didn’t know you were up here. I wasn’t trying to disturb you.”

“No, it’s fine.” Kurt pushes his damp bangs off of his forehead and feels rooted to the spot. He wasn’t quite prepared to face Blaine, especially not as pulled together and seemingly unruffled as he is. Maybe he is more okay than Kurt had thought, and he’s not sure if he should feel as unsettled about that fact as he does.

Blaine apparently takes that statement as permission to join him, and he climbs the last step and comes to stand a few feet away from him. He doesn’t speak, just looks at Kurt and then turns to contemplate the rain-darkened rooftop of the building next to them.

“I didn’t know you liked to come up here,” Kurt says after a brief struggle for words. Blaine isn’t devastated from their fight, and that’s a good thing, but Kurt doesn’t quite know what to make of it.

“Sometimes I do,” Blaine says with a little shrug and a sideways glance at Kurt.

“We’ll have to coordinate our schedules,” Kurt says, just slightly stung, in part because he didn’t know Blaine used the roof as an escape the way he does but mostly because now he’ll have to find somewhere else to cool off when he needs a little break from the pressures of their relationship and his life. He needs a refuge where he can be by himself. He has no idea where else he can go in this busy city. Apart from the roof, the best there is in the building is the tiny storage room in the basement. He’s heard some strange noises coming from there, though, and he isn’t sure if it’s rats or some sort of secret underground sex ring, but either way he’s not going in there without a can of pepper spray.

“I come out here because you do.” Blaine turns toward him, the movement hesitant but his face unguarded. “I know you like it here, and it helps me try to think like you. To understand you. To see what you’re seeing. Not just this - “ He gestures to the cigarette-scattered roof and neighboring buildings. “But in yourself.” His hand comes to rest on his own heart for a moment. “And in us.” He drops his hand back to his side.

“Oh.” Kurt finds he doesn’t have a response to that information. He wraps his arms around himself again, chilled by the rain soaking into his shirt.

“I’m not going to ask if you’re okay,” Blaine says after a moment. “I know you hate that. Obviously you aren’t.”

“Hate is a strong word,” Kurt replies, the words floating over the edge of the roof in front of him and into the night.

Blaine shrugs a little. “Not if it’s accurate.”

“I don’t hate _you_ ,” Kurt tells him.

There’s a slight relaxation in Blaine’s posture, Kurt can see from the corner of his eye, subtle but unmistakably there, and it tightens the knot forming in Kurt’s stomach.

“ _Good_ ,” Blaine says. “But even though you don’t hate me, you do hate being smothered.”

“And also wet dishes.” Kurt can’t help the acidic edge to his voice, and he waves the words away immediately to try to stop them from stinging. He turns his head enough that he can study Blaine’s face, trying to figure out how seriously the words might have hurt.

_This_ is why Kurt needs space. This is why he needs to be alone. He can’t always stop himself from voices his thoughts, and yet a part of him dies every time he manages to bite his tongue. He needs to get it out of his system before he talks to Blaine.

“And also wet dishes,” Blaine echoes softly, a little sadly. “I know.”

“Let’s not start up again,” Kurt says. He presses his finger to the bridge of his nose and wills the headache behind his eyes not to grow. “We aren’t going to get anywhere useful tonight.” He doesn’t know if he has it in him to keep himself in check for another round of bickering.

Blaine nods and is silent for a long moment. “Then I’ll just - “ He gestures to the fire escape, offering to go.

Kurt takes a step toward him, his heart rushing into his throat in a flicker of panic because as much as he wants to be alone he also can’t just let Blaine _leave_. Nothing good comes of not talking. He knows that much. They’ve tried that, and the results weren’t pretty. “What do you think I see?” he asks, the words tumbling out in a rush.

“What?”

“You said you come up here to try to see what I see. What do you think I see?”

Blaine considers him for a moment, his eyes going liquid, both wary and fond. He takes a little breath, the kind he does when he’s finding his courage and determination because he wants to succeed so badly. “I see how much you want to prove to the world around you,” he says, his eyes not leaving Kurt’s face. “And how hard it is when you feel like things aren’t going your way.”

Kurt tips his head in ambivalence, because he would say that he needs to prove that he can succeed to _himself_ , not to the world, but Blaine is at least close. “And I see you,” Kurt says. “I think about you and how much you need people to love and accept you.”

“Maybe not all people,” Blaine replies quietly, steadily. “Not anymore. But definitely you.” The openness of his expression and of his heart remind Kurt of part of why he loves Blaine so deeply, why he’s drawn to this caring and charismatic man who believes in himself too little and in others too much.

“I do love and accept you,” Kurt tells him. He smiles a little, his heart warming in his chest, because he _does_. He does. Despite the dishes, because Blaine is so much more than that. Because he adds so much more to Kurt’s life than that.

“And you don’t have to prove anything to me, because I already know how amazing you are,” Blaine replies with devastatingly simple sincerity. He looks beautiful in the drizzle, his hair beginning to curl at the edges and his dark lashes spiking with water.

The coldness of Kurt’s frustration starts to wash away, just as he knew it would. He _loves_ this man he married, this man who has carried his heart for so many years now. He loves Blaine’s kindness and his talent and his ability to make joy all around him. He loves Blaine’s insecurities and the way he’s learning to push through them. He loves Blaine’s strength, even when he doesn’t anticipate it. He loves Blaine’s devotion and his easy way of showing it, even when times are hard.

Kurt loves every bit of Blaine.

Even the parts that are utterly wrong about dish drying and stacking.

“We’re both amazing,” Kurt says lightly, though he means it down to his bones. “That’s why we’re so perfect together.”

Blaine laughs a little, but his shoulders are still tight like he’s worried. Kurt thinks it’s that and not just the drizzle, anyway. “I’m glad you think so.”

“I do,” Kurt tells him, and he means it. He truly does. Blaine’s the love of his life, his partner, his best friend. They aren’t without their flaws, but they _are_ perfect together.

“I think so, too,” Blaine replies with a bit more of a smile.

Kurt drinks him in for a moment, his bitterness ebbing away second by second. “I don’t want to fight with you.”

“We’re going to sometimes,” Blaine replies before his eyebrows scrunch together like he’s uncertain. “Aren’t we?”

“Probably.” Kurt sighs. “Definitely.” He tips his head and says, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

Kurt can’t be sorry for his opinions. He can’t be sorry for standing his ground, even on things as relatively minor as dishes. He can’t be sorry about being himself. Still... “I don’t know,” he says. “I just am.” He holds out a hand to Blaine. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Blaine steps forward and takes it, holding it securely the way he always does, like their hands are made to fit together. “I know, Kurt. And I don’t want to frustrate you. But I’m not going always going to agree with you, and I don’t think I should pretend I do.”

“No,” Kurt agrees. “Neither of us should be pretending.”

There’s another quiet release in Blaine’s posture, full of tangible relief. It makes Kurt’s heart hurt but also soar to see how hard Blaine is trying, how hard they both are. They’re still treading new ground, not just being married, which feels both magical and like nothing new at all, but also this new way of being partners, with some of their raw edges smoothed off - by experience and deep pain and therapy - and their better selves trying to lead the way.

Blaine’s growing smile turns into a frown as he chafes Kurt’s hand in both of his. “You’re freezing.” He looks up at the sky, the low clouds reflecting the city lights. “Why have you been standing out here so long in the rain?”

Kurt thinks of the itch that had been under his skin to leave-escape- _go_. He thinks of the sharp judgment that had been in Blaine’s voice and the acidic bite in his own. He thinks of the dishes that still need to dry and the pile of homework Blaine has stacked on the kitchen table and the late study group Kurt has to decide whether or not he’s going to skip to get a little time with his husband.

He thinks of stresses. He thinks of disagreements. He thinks of the future and how uncertain it truly is, no matter what they’ve promised and what they feel for each other.

And then he looks at Blaine looking at him like he’s more central to the world than the city or the sky or the rain, and he smiles. Blaine smiles back, like he always does.

“I don’t know,” Kurt says. He presses a kiss to Blaine’s lips, quick and water-slicked and cool. “Let’s go in. Let’s go home.”

“Okay,” Blaine says, and he leads the way back to the place Kurt loves most, the place where they can be - for good or ill and everything in between - themselves.


End file.
